


Chasing Freedom

by benicemurphy



Series: AUgust prompt fills [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Everyone Is Gay, M/M, Pirates, Running Away, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25984837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benicemurphy/pseuds/benicemurphy
Summary: Prompt: Pirates & Arranged Marriage AU for AnnaShiro knows there's a better life out there. He just has to run fast enough to find it.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: AUgust prompt fills [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885945
Comments: 18
Kudos: 72





	Chasing Freedom

The shoreline is in sight. Shiro knows there’s a perfectly… floatable log raft banked on this particular patch of shore. All he has to do is make it there before everyone figures out he’s missing.

Judging from the commotion that has erupted in the distance behind him, he suspects he may be running out of time.

His shoes are nothing but an impediment at this point— and though running barefoot isn’t _much_ better, it is _somewhat_ better. He doesn’t stop running to take his shoes off. He’s losing ground as he hops on one foot to free his feet of their patent leather cages, but makes it up quickly once he’s tossed them aside and is able to really grip the ground with the pads of his feet.

He feels freer already.

The raft is there, just across the dunes he was told not to cross. The noise behind him grows louder. He can’t make out the words they are saying, but he can imagine well enough. If he can just get out to sea…

In the distance, he sees a ship. Foreign ships are rare near the island. Shiro takes it as a sign that he’s doing the right thing. He has a goal, now. He has somewhere to go. He can make it to that ship and sail off to— wherever they’re going, it doesn’t matter.

He nearly stumbles as he crosses the dune, footing uncertain on the soft terrain. Already he’s winded, but he forces himself to keep going.

Just a little farther.

He’s almost there.

He can _taste_ the beginnings of his new life.

The sounds of hooves pounding on the pavement from the direction of the chapel startle him into sprinting faster. It’s times that these that he’s thankful for the strict physical regimen he’s been forced to follow his whole life. There aren’t many other times he’s been thankful for any type of rigidity.

It takes more strength than he expects to push the raft into the water, but he manages. All he needs now is an oar.

He looks frantically around himself. There must be _something_ he can use, anything that can serve as a makeshift paddle— He spots a palm tree nearby with a fallen frond. It’s not ideal, but it’s _something_.

He sprints for the palm frond and back, sloshing through the water to the raft that is lazily drifting out with the waves, and jumps.

Just a _little farther_.

He rights himself on his knees, forcing the palm frond through the water, willing it to get any traction, any at all that will propel him farther out into the waves, away from his obligations, toward freedom. He knows the horses won’t touch the water, but he has to get far enough out that their riders can’t touch the bottom, can’t yank him back to fulfill the promise his parents made for him.

His heart pounds. He’s never been more scared or exhilarated in his entire life.

_Just. A little. Farther._

Noise bursts over the dunes at his back. They’ve spotted him. They’re coming for him!

He rows for his life, quite literally. Just… past the breakers… and then…

“Takashi!”

His heart aches for the poor Miss he’s leaving behind, but he can’t look back.

“Takashi, please!”

He can’t look back. He _has_ to keep going. It’s not fair to her for him to stay, and it’s _really_ not fair to himself.

She stops calling to him. He hopes she’s fallen into the arms of the young Sir who has been pining after her for years. He’s a nice boy. He’ll treat her well.

“Coward!” someone screams. He recognizes the voice as Adam, and finds it bitterly ironic that _he_ should be considered the coward, of the two of them.

At least Shiro has the courage to take the life he wants, rather than living out the rest of his days as a liar.

Several pairs of legs splash into the waves behind him, but he keeps pushing onward. If he looks back and sees them catching up, it will help nothing. If he’s going to fail, he’s going to fail looking straight ahead. He won’t go down without a fight.

But he doesn’t fail. With a distant, manic glee, he realizes he’s made it out past the breakers.

He’s… _free_.

He doesn’t slow. He keeps pushing, eyes set on the ship on the horizon. He can make it. He _can._

He’s soaked through. He doesn’t need his overcoat or his ascot tie anymore; they’re simply weighing him down now, so he tosses them overboard.

His muscles ache with the effort of rowing himself to sea. Now that the thrill of the escape is starting to wane, a more primitive type of panic is setting in: What happens if he can’t reach the ship? There’s no land for miles and miles in any direction. The island that has been his home forever is secluded. There’s a reason foreign ships don’t come here.

“Hey!” he yells. It’s futile— there’s no way the passengers on that ship will hear him from his far. Still, he screams with all his might. “HEY! Help me!”

He paddles. And paddles. And paddles.

And though the ship grows larger as he paddles, the distance is still daunting. The sun is setting. Soon, it will be dark, and he will be alone at sea with nothing but a log raft and a palm frond.

He will surely die out here.

When he is far enough away that the island is only a shadow behind him, he stops paddling. He’s _tired_. He’s finally free, and now he’s here, stranded, tired, awaiting his death if he’s unable to make contact with the ship…

But he’s fading, now. The adrenaline has worn off, and his lids are growing heavy.

“Hey…” he croaks. His energy has been sapped.

Still, dying at sea is surely better than living a lifetime of lies and unhappiness.

He lies on his back and stares up at the stars. He’s never seen them like this, completely surrounded by nothing but sky and sea. It’s eerily peaceful. He could get used to this, he thinks, if only he could survive just like this.

Shiro lets his eyes fall shut. He’ll just rest for a few moments. Just long enough to get his strength back. That’s all.

He listens to the sounds of the sea: Fish splashing as they break the surface and fall back below. Gulls, distant, on the shore he can no longer sea. The gentle rustle of the water lapping over itself. The splash of it against the edges of his raft as it gently rocks him to sleep.

He awakes to the sounds of shouting creaking wood.

“There! Throw down the ladder!”

He opens his eyes. It’s completely dark now, though he has no way of telling how long he’s been adrift. He pulls himself to a seated position and looks around, startling when he finds himself face-to-face with the ship he’d seen earlier. He’s close enough that he could swim to it now.

There’s a splash as the end of a rope ladder falls into the sea. He takes his chance, steels himself, and jumps.

Someone is there to help him up when he reaches the ladder. There’s too much water in his eyes, so he can’t see who it is, but he’s grateful; he’s too tired and sore to climb all the way on his own strength alone.

“Are you okay?” the person asks as Shiro feels himself being lowered onto the solid deck. It’s a man, judging by his voice. It’s a very nice voice, deep and rusty.

“Yeah,” he breathes. And then, “Thank you.” He tries to blink away the salt, but he has nothing to wipe away the water, and it continues to drip down his face and into his eyes.

“Get him a blanket,” the man with the nice voice commands. Someone scurries away and comes back rather quickly. He feels himself being wrapped up in the blanket. He hadn’t realized he was shivering, but now that he’s covered, he realizes he’s been freezing. He uses the corner of the blanket to wipe the water away from his face and squeeze out the long parts of his hair that are holding the most water.

Now that he can see, he looks up into the eyes of the man holding him in his arms.

He is, in a word, _beautiful_.

“You saved me,” he whispers. The man has no idea how many ways that is true.

“You’re safe here,” the man assures him. “We’ll take care of you now.”

“Who are you?” Shiro asks him.

“I’m Keith.”

The moon in Keith’s hair makes him look like a dark angel, like something from the stories he’s read tucked away in the library for so many long hours.

“You’re beautiful,” Shiro says. He doesn’t mean to, and he hopes he won’t be thrown overboard for the admission.

But Keith simply smiles at him, somehow sharp and amused at the same time.

“Let’s see if you still think so in the light of day, when I haven’t just pulled you from the sea.”

None of that matters, Shiro thinks. Not when Keith is the most ethereal creature he has ever seen.

He falls unconscious to the thought of Keith’s features glowing in the moonlight.

It’s daylight the next time he awakens. He’s been stripped of his sopping clothes and redressed in new ones. Somehow, even this feels freer. His new clothes are light and billowy, perfectly suited to a life at sea.

Now that it’s light out, he can see the ship’s black sails— the mark of pirates.

Footsteps catch his attention, and he turns to find Keith leaning against the mizzen, arms crossed over his chest and every bit at gorgeous as the night before.

“Mornin’,” Keith drawls. Shiro’s throat is dry.

Keith must anticipate this, because he pulls free the canteen hanging from his hip and brings it to Shiro. “Drink.”

Shiro does.

When he’s finished, he makes to hand it back, but Keith holds out a hand. “Keep it. We got plenty.” He gestures to the wide open seas around them. “Can’t make a life out at sea without finding ways to make the water drinkable.”

“So you _are_ pirates,” Shiro blurts.

Keith raises one thick eyebrow. “That a problem.”

Shiro thinks. “No,” he decides. “Not at all.”

Keith smiles. “Good. Because I was hoping you’d stick around.”

Shiro doesn’t want to hope, he doesn’t, but the way Keith is looking at him now suggests that he made the right choice yesterday, running away from a marriage he never chose to a woman he would never grow to love.

“I have a feeling you might fit in here,” Keith says.

Shiro looks around. The things he notices shock him to his core. He finds two women lounging together, one resting her back against the other’s chest between her spread legs. He sees a larger man brush a smaller man’s hair behind his ears. Everywhere he looks, he sees people happy and free and _just like him_.

“Yeah,” he breathes, stunned to tears. “Yeah, I think I might.”

“What’s your name?” Keith asks him.

Takashi. He’s always been Takashi. _Sir_ Takashi, to most. Master Shirogane to some.

“I’m Shiro.”

“Well, Shiro,” Keith says, sauntering over to him. The swish of his hips is hypnotizing. “You still think I’m pretty?”

“I believe I called you beautiful,” he reminds him.

Keith’s smile is soft, but determined. “Alright. Still think so?”

Shiro can only nod.

“Good.”

There are slim fingers in his hair, and he can’t breathe. And then Keith’s breath is ghosting over his lips, and he stops thinking and just _kisses him_.

“Are you ready for this, Shiro?” Keith asks against his lips. “Can you handle this?”

“I’ll go wherever you take me,” he answers.

Shiro has never been more certain of anything in his life.

It’s the freest he’s ever been. It’s all he could ever want. Out here, with the stars and the sea and the most beautiful man he’s ever seen, _this_ is all he’s ever wanted.


End file.
